Indian
tribes are not immune from having to report campaign contributions under the
state Political Reform Act, the Third District Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.

It
was the second time a panel of the Sacramento-based court has rejected a
tribe’s claim of immunity from the act, also known as Proposition 9.
Yesterday’s case involved the Santa Rosa Indian Community of Kings County,
while the previous decision rejected an immunity claim by the Agua Caliente
tribe, which runs two casinos in Palm
Springs.

In
the Santa Rosa
case, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Joe S. Gray quashed service of the Fair
Political Practices Commission’s suit against the tribe for failing to file
semi-annual campaign contribution reports from 1998 through 2001 and other
violations.

The
tribe is accused of contributing $110,000 to Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and
$250,000 to one of the Indian gaming initiatives on the 1998 ballot after the
last pre-election reporting period. Any such contribution in excess of $1,000
must be reported within 24 hours, and the tribe allegedly failed to make the
required report.

Gray
ruled that as a federal recognized tribe, the Santa
Rosa community was immune from state civil
process.

But
Justice Richard Sims III, writing for a divided panel yesterday, said the
immunity was solely a creature of the common law and that, under some
circumstances, it must yield to public policy.

The
justice cited the constitutional guarantee of a “Republican Form of
Government,” explaining:

“The
right and duty of the state to maintain a republican form of government
necessarily includes the right to elect representatives and to protect against
corruption of the political process.”

The
immunity, he added, has generally been applied as a protection against private
actions, not against the state, Sims said, absent a relevant statute or treaty.

Robie
expressed sympathy for the majority’s desire to have tribes participate in the
political process on the same terms as everyone else. But the decision lacks
support in the Constitution, the dissenting justice insisted.

“Whatever
power the state has to sue an Indian tribe for campaign contribution disclosure
violations is an inherent power that derives from the state’s sovereignty,”
Robie wrote. “As the Tenth Amendment makes clear, however, the state retains
that sovereign power +only+ to the extent the exercise of that power is not
prohibited by the federal Constitution or inconsistent with the federal
government’s exercise of powers delegated to it by the Constitution.”

Even
if the immunity is only a matter of common law, Robie argued, it still takes
precedence over state law because of the Supremacy Clause.

The
case is Fair Political Practices Commission
v. Santa Rosa Indian Community of the Santa Rosa Rancheria, 04
S.O.S. 5762.